There is a need in the field to provide lighting fixtures or systems that have enhanced efficiency and that yet are characterized by a minimized glare and brightness. In the past various techniques have been devised to improve the efficiency and glare characteristics of lumenaires. For example, a recent lighting fixture is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,967,648 in which, in the background discussion, various past techniques are described to enhance the efficiency and uniformity of the output light. The lumenaire disclosed in this patent describes the use of a sheet of polymeric light control film which is comprised of a thin sheet of clear polymeric material with an embedded layer of metallic foil that is perforated to allow a measured amount of light to pass therethrough. Even with this improvement existing lighting apparatus still has certain drawbacks associated therewith including, inter alia, excessive glare, excessive brightness, direct viewing of the lamp from certain angles, non-uniformity of the light pattern and degraded efficiency.
Accordingly, it an object of the present invention to provide an improved lumenaire that overcomes the limitations of known arrangements.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a lumenaire that is characterized by minimizing glare and brightness from the fixture, all while enhancing the efficiency of the lumenaire.